Earle Wheeler

Earle Gilmore Wheeler (13 January 1908-18 December 1975) was a US Army General who served as Chief of Staff of the US Army from 1 October 1962 to 2 July 1964 (succeeding George H. Decker and preceding Harold K. Johnson) and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 3 July 1964 to 2 July 1970 (succeeding Maxwell B. Taylor and preceding Thomas H. Moorer).

Biography
Earle Wheeler was born in Washington DC in 1908, and he joined the US Army in 1924 and served in China from 1937 to 1938, as a mathematics instructor at West Point from 1940 to 1941, as a divisional trainer from 1941 to 1944, and as a NATO staff officer in Europe during the 1950s. In 1962, he briefly served as Deputy Commander of US Forces in Europe, and he went on to serve as Chief of Staff of the US Army from 1962 to 1964 and as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 1964 to 1970. He often urged President Lyndon B. Johnson to be more aggressive during the Vietnam War, including advising him to expand aerial bombing campaigns, earning a reputation as a hawk. He also pushed to raise US troop numbers after the Tet Offensive in 1968, calling for 205,000 additional ground troops to be gained by mobilizing reserves. President Johnson ultimately decided against escalating the war, and Wheeler would oversee the implementation of the Vietnamization program under President Richard Nixon. He retired in July 1970, and he died in Frederick, Maryland in 1975.